IntelTechniques by Michael Bazzell https://inteltechniques.com/blog/ IntelTechniques by Michael Bazzell The New Blog https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#the-new-blog-content The New Blog Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:01:00 GMT https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#the-new-blog-content
WordPress was great. Type what you want to say; click a few buttons; and poof, your post is available to the world while your RSS feed is auto generated. It was so easy. It also brought a lot of trouble.

Even though we self-hosted the blog, WordPress continued to add various tracking capabilities. We would remove them as they emerged, but tracking was still possible. We try to prevent us from knowing the IP addresses of our visitors whenever possible. This gives you more privacy and us deniability if we were to receive a court order for traffic. The feds were not knocking down our door, but we like to practice what we preach.

We use Cloudflare as our CDN and full caching prevented our web host from receiving the requests for pages. This eliminated both our host and us from seeing your specific traffic and IP address. However, searches on the blog would generate a direct hit to the host and bypass the protection. We disabled search but that did not stop all logging when an un-cached page was accessed.

My main beef with having WordPress on our site was the attacks. Thousands of bots brute-force and scrape WordPress installations looking for content and vulnerabilities. This can result in hundreds of thousands of page loads every day, sometimes millions. Our CDN stops some of it, but most gets by.

I also just don’t like having a large amount of code and a database on my site just to deliver text content and a few images. WordPress is very excessive for our needs. So we killed it. Doing this left us with an entire site existing of only HTML and JS. This allowed us to stop using our web host (Namecheap) and simply cache the static pages on a Cloudflare worker. The entire site is under 100 MB and our old host is no longer logging your activity. Cloudflare is now the only server which can see the data and traffic, and they do not share IP address or traffic logs with us, outside of temporary security logs when attacked. That is not to say THEY don't store the data, but they could do that as our CDN anyway. We have just eliminated one of two middle-men (Namecheap). We updated our Privacy Policy to reflect these new benefits at https://inteltechniques.com/privacy.

Today, we offer a pure HTML with Javacript Blog at https://inteltechniques.com/blog/. There is no database and all of the content is on a single HTML page. Images only load if you expand a post in order to keep bandwidth down for you and us. We created an RSS feed to continue supplying updates to those who rely on RSS readers for content. We even forward the old feed to the new so that your existing configurations should just work.

We have already posted new content and pruned the old and outdated material so be sure to take a look and subscribe to the RSS feed. We have many big things planned. ]]> New Firewall Guide https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#firewall-guide-content New Firewall Guide Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:02:00 GMT https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#firewall-guide-content https://inteltechniques.com/firewall/. This guide walks through every step of creating your own pfSense firewall with Proton VPN and Wireguard. ]]> OSINT Tools Update https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#osint-tools-update-content OSINT Tools Update Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:03:00 GMT https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#osint-tools-update-content https://inteltechniques.com/tools/. They now allow automated query of an X (Twitter) username across XCancel for data retrieval without being logged into a X (Twitter) account including filtration by year.

]]> Online Training: Updates and Membership Discounts https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#2 Online Training: Updates and Membership Discounts Mon, 10 Aug 2026 09:00:00 GMT https://inteltechniques.com/blog/index.html#2
We also wanted to remind former training members that, although training costs have risen in recent years, you are always welcome to renew your membership at your original discounted price point. Contact Jason at training@inteltechniques.net directly to reactivate your account or if you have any questions. No chatbots, no AI agents, and no call centers. Laura or I will assist you directly because we think you deserve proper support from real humans.

New Lessons and Updates

The training currently includes more than 130 hours of video content, 1,000+ pages of digital guides, a custom OSINT virtual machine, specialized scripts, and report templates, with new content added every month. Below is a sample of recent lessons, tools, and resources added to the program and you can view the full curriculum at inteltechniques.net.

Triaging Leads Best practices for deciding which leads to pursue early in an investigation, with an optional real-world practical exercise.

Event Threat Assessments A scenario-based lesson on researching events, related issues, and online discussions to support safety planning and tactical decision-making.

Privacy Assessments A workflow for conducting vulnerability assessments on cooperating targets. New Excel and Obsidian templates are provided.

Developer Tools: Removing Page Elements A demonstration on using browser developer tools to remove overlays and reveal hidden page content during online investigations.

Cultural Intelligence Guidance on interpreting interests, beliefs, online behavior, photos, videos, usernames, and cultural context to improve investigative analysis.

Investigating a Scam Email – Exercise and Demo A practical attribution exercise using a real-world scam email, followed by a walkthrough of the investigative workflow.

Domains, IP Addresses, and DNS A foundational overview of how domains, IP addresses, and DNS work in the context of web traffic.

How Packets Work A companion write-up to the Domains, IP Addresses, and DNS lesson, explaining what happens at the packet level when a browser requests a website.

APIs An overview of application programming interfaces appropriate for OSINT work and how to add them to your workflow.

Due Diligence Reports An overview of core components, templates, and best practices for professional due diligence reporting.

Updated Tools Dashboard An updated set of custom OSINT tools available only to training members, including hosted and self-hosted options.

Client Expectations: Bug Sweep Scenario A real-world counter-surveillance scenario used to discuss best practices for managing challenging client expectations.

Sanctions Evasion Report and Resources A sample report and resources focused on business-entity research in the context of a sanctions-evasion investigation.

Address Verification Demo A demonstration combining search engines, people-search results, and government databases to locate and verify a target residential address.

Premium Breach Data Services A comparison spreadsheet covering popular premium breach-data services. This supplements our lesson series on building and self-hosting your own breach-data collections.

Triaging a Personal Data Security Incident Actionable steps to take in the first 24 hours after a cyber incident to stop the bleeding and mitigate damage.

OSINT Case Study: “Call to Arms” This case study was shared by one of our members and walks through their approach to an OSINT investigation.

Investigative Pivots Best practices for identifying new leads and uncovering new investigative paths.

PDF Editors and Utilities Alternative PDF readers, editors, and utilities for preparing OSINT reports. This is a useful lesson for anyone interested in moving away from Adobe products and unfriendly subscription fees.

Transitioning to Linux from Windows Tips and considerations for moving away from Windows and over to Linux as a primary operating system.

Cloudflare Tunnels A practical introduction to using Cloudflare Tunnels for low-cost remote access to infrastructure and self-hosted tools.

Note-taking Templates in Excel Format Two new Excel templates for collecting, organizing, and reusing investigative findings.

Telegram Scraping with Python, Part 1 The first lesson in a series using Python scripts to automate collection of Telegram content.

GitHub A walkthrough of GitHub navigation, search options, and profile research.

Images and Photographs An updated lesson on tactics and tools for processing digital images during OSINT investigations.

10-Day Security An updated digital-security guide with tips for coaching others through a 10-step digital security makeover.

Regular Expressions This lesson explains how to use regex for locating and filtering patterned data in large files, such as breach data.

Executive Summaries An example-driven lesson on writing stronger executive summaries.

Linux Terminal A beginner-friendly guide to the Linux terminal and common command-line tools.

Infiltration Tactics and guidelines for online infiltration work, with discussion of policy, risk, and the importance of professional judgment.

What Makes IntelTechniques Training Different

  • IntelTechniques instructors are active-duty professionals from the U.S. intelligence community with decades of real-world experience. When evaluating OSINT training, we believe that instructor qualifications matter. You should know whether the people teaching the material have actual experience using these tactics at a professional level. When we are not teaching you about intelligence work, we are actively working real cases and operations in the intelligence field.
  • Our training format is demonstration-based and uses real-world targets. This is not “death by PowerPoint.” The program is built around practical tools, repeatable workflows, investigative tradecraft, and the full intelligence process from triage through report writing.
  • We write our own curriculum. Our materials have become the foundation that many other OSINT training programs, instructors, and academic courses use as a reference point.
  • The program is designed to provide substantial value at a practical price point. We encourage you to compare programs carefully and look at the details: depth of content, instructor experience, student support, templates, tools, updates, and practical application.
  • We focus our time and resources on curriculum and student support rather than marketing. Our growth has relied largely on word of mouth, and we are proud that the program is known for the strength of its content. This is why you do not hear from us often about the program. We want to respect your time and inbox.
  • Support is direct and personal. Michael, Laura, or Jason will assist you directly; you will not be routed to a call center, support bot, or random staff member.

Certification Considerations

Many certification programs rely primarily on academic testing and recurring fees. We believe a written test alone does not prove that someone can perform intelligence work, so our certification process is different.

  • Candidates complete a 10-day real-world OSINT mission resulting in a professional intelligence report that can serve as a meaningful portfolio sample.
  • The process is challenging and not for everyone, but successful candidates clear a high bar for OSINT certification.
  • IntelTechniques certifies your work directly. We do not charge additional fees for a third-party logo, and we do not believe you should have to pay recurring maintenance fees to keep a certification you earned.
Our certification is tough and requires a significant time commitment, but if you pass, you will have achieved something that sets you apart from most intelligence professionals.

Reactivating Your Membership Former IntelTechniques online training members are always welcome back at their previous rate. If you would like to reactivate your account at your previous discounted rate, please contact Jason directly at training@inteltechniques.net, and we will provide a payment link at your discounted membership rate. There is no deadline, no strings attached, and no hoops to jump through. You are welcome to reach out any time with questions or to regain access to our new content.

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